Office workers of the future expect to have hologram 'virtual assistants' and
Terminator-style view of the workplace

Having to drag yourself to a conference room for a meeting will be a distant memory in 20 year’s time as we will be sending hologram “virtual assistants” in our place.

And having the telephone will also be cast into history as we communicate via “carrier nodes” implanted in our ears that transmit audio and video directly into our brains as electrical signals.

The vision of the future workplace was imagined in survey by office equipment make Ricoh, which asked people how the expected the technology to change their jobs.

The study found that within the next decade 60pc of people expect typing skills to have been made redundant by the introduction of voice recognition technology.

An even greater proportion – 69pc – expect to be getting to grips with touch-based interactive devices during their working day, while 56pc expect augmented reality glasses to give them a Terminator-style view of the jobs.

“This survey reflects positively on the UK’s workforce: it shows that employees are not only digitally literate, they are also excited about how technology can enhance their productivity and their work spaces,” said Phil Keoghan, chief executive of Ricoh UK.

“We carried out this survey because we wanted to know how people want to work and what’s important to them going forward. Our research gives insights into how people want to interact with technology in the future.”

Other innovations staff expect to encounter include drones and Bluetooth-style “brain-to-brain” connections.

While employees are keen to embrace these new techologies which they think will improve their productivity, they are worried their bosses are not. Just 29pc of respondents think their company has a strong appetite for creating new ways of working through such innovations.